The “angry young man” theme in Hollywood narratives was already becoming a little threadbare by the time the torch was passed to Warren Beatty in All Fall Down. These accounts of cynicism, rebellion, and frustrated young males who had lost their way (or never found it) were portrayed more memorably starting in the mid-1950s by Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1954), and James Dean in both East Of Eden and Rebel Without A Cause (1955).
Other memorable portrayals of this dramatic sub-genre include Laurence Harvey in Room At The Top (1959). Unlike these four examples, Beatty’s role in All Fall Down doesn’t offer much plausible explanation as to why the sexy, golden boy Berry Berry (Beatty) “hates life”so much. In East Of Eden Dean’s character suffers from dysfunctional family issues relating to an oppressively religious father, intense sibling rivalry with the younger brother (who is blatantly favored by their father) and a mother who didn’t die when the boys were younger, but is discovered by Dean to be alive and running a brothel in a nearby town, finally exposing that dirty little family secret.
Rebel Without A Cause once again finds Dean trapped within another warring, dysfunctional family and also struggling through other teen angst when trying to fit in at a new school, but is harassed by bullies. Room At The Top has Laurence Harvey seething with bitterness and resentment while trying to overcome rigid class barriers through social climbing in late 1940s England. Marlon Brando is a non-conformist and a biker which didn’t necessarily go over well in 1950s America causing him to be a social outcast.
Warren Beatty’s portrayal of a disaffected, troubled young man in All Fall Down on the other hand appears to be the result of having too many advantages, a family who dotes on him too much, allows him to get away with bad behavior and never gives him the tough love he really needs to teach him some important life lessons. It never occurs to him that maybe he should be a positive role model to his adoring younger brother Clint (played by Brandon de Wilde). Berry Berry’s “hatred” of life as expressed to Clint early in the story neatly brackets the beginning and the end of All Fall Down as Berry Berry tarnishes or destroys everyone he comes in contact with.
His drunken, cruel womanizing is ignored by his obsessively nervous, groveling, and overbearing cliche of a mother – played to irritating effect by the late Angela Lansbury. Berry Berry’s weak-willed father (played by Karl Malden) proves powerless to prevent any of his son’s atrocious behavior – but provides some comic relief to the proceedings by sneaking cocktails in the basement as his coping mechanism from household strife.
Aside from the overbearing mother, the rivalry between the two brothers is another tired element of the storyline (an echo of East Of Eden) but played to better effect in that film. Their competition over the affections of Echo (Eva Marie Saint) an attractive and sophisticated older woman has been done numerous times. However, just the suggestion of romance between the baby-faced, and under-aged seeming Clint is downright creepy and criminal.
Overall, though, Berry Berry has a much better family life than he deserves. His family is stable and loving. We get the impression that they tried to bring him up with positive values, which makes his womanizing and other sloppy, irresponsible behaviors all the more inexplicable and reprehensible. For anyone well-versed in family dramas of the 1950s and 60s gets the impression that All Fall Down and its familial intrigue is a Tennessee Williams knock-off transferred from a southern to northern setting.
The angsty young male as played by Warren Beatty just doesn’t quite jell as it did with his predecessors. Nevertheless, All Fall Down raises the disturbing notion that some people are the proverbial bad seed, born hard-wired for trouble and destined to live out their lives that way.
